Advertising & Cookies Policy

1. Overview — what this page covers

This Advertising & Cookies Policy explains, in plain English, how How Many Camels Am I Worth (“we“, “us“, “our“) uses Google AdSense to display advertising on the website at howmanycamelsamiworth.co.uk (the “Site“), and what this means for your privacy. It should be read alongside our main Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Advertising & Affiliate Disclosure.

The Site is funded partly by Google AdSense advertising revenue. We chose AdSense because it allows us to monetise the Site without selling any of your personal data directly to advertisers — Google acts as an intermediary, serving ads based on its own inferences about your interests, and we receive a share of the resulting advertising revenue. We never see the individual data Google collects about you, and we have no control over which specific ads Google chooses to display on the Site.

Because Google AdSense sets cookies on your device when ads are displayed, we are required under UK law — specifically the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) and the UK GDPR — to obtain your consent before those cookies are set. We do this via the cookie consent banner that appears on your first visit to the Site.

2. What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense is a contextual advertising network operated by Google LLC. Website publishers (like us) add a small piece of Google’s JavaScript code to their pages. Google’s servers then analyse the content of each page and serve advertisements that they consider relevant to that content and to the user viewing it. Advertisers pay Google for these ads; Google shares a portion of that payment with the publisher.

AdSense can operate in two modes, and we use both depending on your cookie consent choice:

• Personalised ads (default for users who accept advertising cookies): Google uses cookies and other signals — including your approximate location, browsing history, and the content of the page you’re viewing — to display ads it believes are relevant to your interests. This requires cookies and is only enabled after you give consent.
• Non-personalised ads (default for users who reject advertising cookies, or for users in regions where personalised ads are not served): Google displays ads based only on the content of the current page and on contextual signals (such as your rough location and time of day), without using cookies to track your interests over time. Non-personalised ads still use a small amount of local storage for frequency capping and fraud prevention, but they do not build a profile of your interests.

Both modes are explained in detail in Google’s own “About cookies and how Google uses them” help article.

3. Cookies Google AdSense sets

If you accept advertising cookies, Google AdSense sets the following cookies on your device when ads are displayed on the Site. These cookies are set by Google’s domains (google.com and doubleclick.net), not by howmanycamelsamiworth.co.uk — but because they are triggered by our pages, we are responsible for disclosing them and obtaining your consent.

If you reject advertising cookies via our cookie banner, Google AdSense will run in “limited ads” mode. In this mode, Google does not set the personalisation cookies listed above, but may still use a small amount of local storage for the purposes of frequency capping (preventing you from seeing the same ad too many times) and basic fraud prevention. This is the most privacy-friendly mode in which AdSense can run while still displaying ads.

4. What data Google collects

When AdSense ads are displayed on the Site, the following information may be collected by Google and used to serve, measure and report on advertising:

• IP address — used to determine your approximate geographical location (typically city-level). IP addresses are truncated by Google after a short period in line with its privacy commitments.
• Browser and device information — browser type, operating system, screen resolution, language settings.
• Page interaction data — which pages you viewed, how long you spent on each, and whether you clicked on, hovered over, or otherwise interacted with any ads.
• Referring URL — the website or page that referred you to the Site.
• Cookie data — the unique IDs stored in the cookies listed above, used to recognise you across visits and across websites that use Google’s advertising services.
• Contextual signals — the content of the page you’re viewing, used to serve contextually relevant ads in both personalised and non-personalised modes.

We do not share any of the calculator inputs you enter (age, height, hair colour, etc.) with Google or any other third party. Those inputs are processed entirely in your browser and never transmitted to our server or to Google’s ad servers. The only data Google receives is the standard technical data described above.

5. Google as a third-party data controller

When Google AdSense is active on the Site, Google LLC acts as a separate Data Controller for the personal data it processes for its own purposes (ad serving, measurement, fraud prevention, and improving Google’s advertising products). This means Google is independently responsible for complying with UK GDPR and other applicable data protection laws in respect of that processing.

We are responsible only for our own processing — which includes operating the cookie consent mechanism, disclosing the use of AdSense on this Site, and providing you with the means to opt out. Once data is in Google’s hands, your relationship is with Google, governed by Google’s own Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. We have no access to the data Google collects about you, and we cannot delete it on your behalf.

6. Google’s privacy policies

We strongly recommend that you read Google’s own privacy documentation to understand fully how Google uses the data collected via AdSense. The most important resources are:

7. Your consent and how to control it

Under PECR Regulation 6 and UK GDPR Article 6(1)(a), we are required to obtain your consent before Google AdSense sets cookies on your device. We do this via the cookie consent banner that appears on your first visit to the Site. The banner offers three choices:

• Accept all — essential, functional, analytics AND advertising cookies will be set. AdSense will run in personalised mode.
• Reject all optional — only the essential consent cookie will be set. AdSense will run in “limited ads” (non-personalised) mode, where it does not set personalisation cookies.
• Manage preferences — you can toggle each category individually, including advertising cookies specifically.

You can change your consent choice at any time by visiting our Cookie Policy page, where you’ll find a cookie control panel with toggle switches for each category. Your new preference will be saved to the hcaw_cc cookie and will take effect on your next page load.

8. EEA and UK users — Google’s EU User Consent Policy

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, Google’s EU User Consent Policy applies in addition to our own consent mechanism. This policy requires us to:

• Obtain your consent to the use of cookies or other local storage where required;
• Obtain your consent to the collection, sharing, and use of personal data for personalisation of ads;
• Disclose to you the identity of all third parties with whom we share personal data for the purpose of personalising ads (in our case, Google LLC);
• Provide you with information about how you can opt out of personalised advertising.

We comply with all four requirements via this page, our Cookie Policy, and the cookie consent banner. If you believe we have failed to meet any of these requirements, please contact us and we will investigate immediately.

9. International data transfers

Google LLC is a US-based company. When Google AdSense processes your personal data, that data may be transferred to, stored in, or processed in the United States or other countries outside the UK. Google relies on Standard Contractual Clauses (also known as “model clauses”) as the legal mechanism for such transfers, in line with the requirements of UK GDPR Chapter V.

Following the “Schrems II” ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (Case C-311/18) and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office’s subsequent guidance, Google has implemented additional safeguards for transfers of personal data to the US. For the full details, see Google’s “How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services” page.

10. AdSense cookie retention

The retention periods for the cookies Google AdSense sets are listed in the table in section 3 above. In summary: the longest-lived AdSense cookies (IDE) persist for up to 2 years; the __gads and __gpi cookies persist for 13 months; the NID cookie persists for 6 months. After the retention period expires, the cookies are automatically deleted by your browser.

You can delete these cookies at any time by clearing cookies in your browser settings — see our Cookie Policy for browser-specific instructions.

11. Children

Google AdSense is not permitted to be served alongside content directed at children under 13, in line with the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and equivalent UK rules. Our Site is not directed at children under 13 (see our Privacy Policy section on children’s privacy), and we have configured our AdSense account to treat the Site as not child-directed. If you believe a child under 13 has used the Site, please contact us.

12. Editorial independence

The presence of Google AdSense advertising on the Site does not influence our editorial content. We do not write articles or create calculators with the intention of triggering specific AdSense ads. We do not allow advertisers to sponsor, review, or approve any of our editorial content before publication. The ads you see are chosen by Google’s algorithm based on the page content and (if you’ve consented) your interests — we have no control over which specific ads are displayed.

If you see an ad on this Site that you consider misleading, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate, please contact us with the URL of the page and a description of the ad. We can block specific advertisers or categories in our AdSense settings, and we will investigate all reports.

13. How to block or limit ads

If you would prefer not to see any ads on this Site (or any other site that uses Google AdSense), you have several options:

• Reject advertising cookies on this Site — ads will still appear, but they will not be personalised. Use the cookie control panel on our Cookie Policy page.
• Opt out of personalised ads globally via Google — visit Google Ads Settings and toggle off “Ad personalisation”. This applies across all websites that use Google’s ad services.
• Use an ad blocker — browser extensions like uBlock Origin, AdBlock Plus, or Brave Shields will prevent ads from loading entirely. We don’t mind — we’d rather you read the Site comfortably than see ads you don’t want.
• Use the Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out — visit aboutads.info/choices to opt out of interest-based advertising from all participating ad networks, not just Google’s.
• Use Your Online Choices (UK/EU) — visit youronlinechoices.com/uk for the European industry opt-out scheme.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this Advertising & Cookies Policy from time to time — particularly if Google changes the cookies AdSense sets, the data it collects, or the consent mechanisms required. When we make material changes, we will revise the “Effective” date at the top of this page and post a prominent notice on the Site for a reasonable period.

15. Complaints

If you have a complaint about how advertising is displayed on this Site, or about any aspect of this policy, please contact us first. We aim to respond within 14 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may also complain to:

• Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — for data protection complaints: ico.org.uk · 0303 123 1113
• Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) — for complaints about specific ads: asa.org.uk · 020 7492 2222
• Google directly — for complaints about Google’s ad practices: support.google.com/adsense

16. Contact us

If you have any questions about this Advertising & Cookies Policy, please contact us: